And Baby Makes 2(N32)
by ambiguously
Summary: One super-powered toddler is a handful.


As relocations went, this one wasn't bad. The Rebel fleet had separated into three roughly equal groups, and either their luck had come through or Hera had pulled some strings, because their group had gone to ground at a new base on a nice planet. The atmosphere was breathable without special equipment. The outside temperatures remained mild. The day and night cycles were kind of weird due to axial tilt, but Kanan could deal with that by keeping Jacen on a steady cycle as tracked by the Ghost's computer. If the two of them were the only ones going to bed while somewhere outside the ship, the sun hung blue and bloated above the rest of the Rebellion, that was fine with him. It wasn't as though he could see it, and Jacen wasn't old enough to care. There weren't any lifeforms on the land more advanced that the little stinging insects that bred in the shallow waters, and the aquatic life had yet to decide things were nicer up here. As base possibilities went, it beat the ice planet where Rieekan's group was hunkering down, and it wasn't half so desolate as the remote rock where they were stowing Mon Mothma out of the Emperor's reach.

Zeb had opted for the rock, promising to meet up with them the next time the fleet rejoined. "I want a bit of time off the ship," he'd said, and Kanan hadn't needed to see his face to read the slight embarrassment at the half-lie; Alexsandr had accepted a position as part of Mothma's command team.

Hera was up to her ears in work, sure, between training the constant stream of newly-recruited pilots, and putting in time in high-level meetings even Kanan didn't know the full extent of. "You could join the senior staff," she'd said, more than once. "I can't tell you everything unless you do." That bothered her. They used to be able to tell each other anything.

"Call me in when you need me. You know I hate long meetings." Then he'd kiss her, which he knew annoyed her because he was changing the subject again. He also knew it didn't annoy her much, especially if Jacen was down for his nap and they had time for a private one on one meeting of their own.

It was a good life, and that's what should have been Kanan's first clue.

The weather had been chilly and wet for the last several days. He'd never considered the Ghost to be confining or claustrophobic until he found himself stuck inside with a bored toddler and a cranky droid.

"At least take Chopper with you," Kanan begged Hera. "It's worse when they're together."

Hera shook her head. "Chop got himself banned from the command center." Chopper beeped in indignation. "Yes, you did." Another beep. "No, it was not his fault, it was yours. I watched you."

Kanan let them argue until Chopper rolled away in a huff. "Do not leave him here. I swear Chop is plotting to turn Jace to the Dark Side for a laugh."

"Power him off if he gets to be too much trouble." She kissed Kanan's cheek, then gave Jacen a loud hug just the way he liked.

"Don't say I didn't warn you. You're going to come back to the ship one day, and your son will have yellow eyes and call himself Darth Stinkpants." He had to shout the last part as she was already walking away from the ship.

"Stinkpants!" Jacen said with high-pitched glee.

"Yeah. Darth Stinkpants. That's you." He patted the kid's hair fondly. "Now finish your breakfast and we'll go play."

When the rain and the cool at last gave way to a sunny, warm day that more or less corresponded to their waking cycle, Kanan decided enough was enough. "We're going for a walk." He packed up a bag of useful items: a few teething snacks, an extra change of absorbant pants, and a soft toy Jacen liked to snuggle when he was upset.

"No," he said to Chopper. "You stay here. If Hera comes back, tell her we've gone for a walk." Chopper whistled. "No, you do not need exercise." Chopper whistled again. Jacen whistled back. "I told you not to teach him that one!"

Chopper chuckled to himself as Kanan took Jacen's hand and left the ship. "One of these days, we've going to evacuate a base and that droid is going to accidentally be left behind." He felt a sudden dip in Jacen's emotions. "Hey, hey!" he said in a light voice, picking his son up and swinging him into his arms. "Dad was just being silly. We'd never leave Chop behind."

Jacen settled, and was soon distracted by watching the flying insects. A few species had evolved into larger forms than the others, and preyed on their tiny distant cousins, or sipped nectar from the young plants pushing into bloom after the rainy season. Jacen watched them with utter fascination, squirming until Kanan let him walk on his own to get closer.

"Careful," Kanan said, keeping a tight hold on his little hand. "No touching."

"Okay."

"What's the rule?"

"No touching."

He pulled Kanan towards the path through the taller ferns which served as the planet's only form of shade vegetation, the tallest only a meter over Kanan's head. They'd walked through here before, weeks ago before the rains. Kanan sensed nothing dangerous around them, but knew they shouldn't go far.

"You see something?"

"Yep." His hand was tugged.

Kanan held back. "What does it look like?"

"Blue!"

"Blue what?" They'd been working on vocabulary. The kid knew plenty of color words, though Hera said he was at about eighty percent on those. He knew 'Dad' and 'Mama' and 'Chop,' hadn't yet worked his way around the opening consonant of Zeb's name, and was the only creature in the galaxy permitted to refer to Sabine as 'Bean.' Other words were harder to figure out.

"Blue flower?" he tried.

Kanan smiled. "You see a blue flower?"

"Yep!"

"No touching. We can look a little closer."

"Okay." The flower was inspected, and declared to be blue. The flying bug tasting it was declared to be purple. Jacen counted four eyes, which was pretty good since the kid could only count to six. He was distracted by another flying bug, this one much smaller, and tried to toddle after it.

"Stay close," Kanan reminded him.

"Want to look!"

"You can look, but stay with me." He took a deep breath of this world's good air. "Lesson time. Close your eyes." He put his hand over Jacen's face. Jacen giggled. He knew what was coming. They played this game a lot. "Now, look at the bug with your other eyes."

"Okay."

"Stand very still, and follow the bug as it flies."

Jacen said nothing, but Kanan felt him reach out with his emerging powers, observing the warm light of the Force inside as it bobbled through the air inside the tiny carapace.

They walked a little more, until Jacen's feet started dragging. "Getting tired, kiddo?"

"Want up!" He raised his arms to be picked up, and Kanan obliged. He headed back towards the base as Jacen chattered about the blue flowers he saw from way up here, and about the bugs.

Kanan gave him a quick squeeze. "Tell me everything you see, little guy." It was fun to develop his picture of this planet through his son's impressions: all bright colors and simple lines like the many drawings he made for his mother.

Back at the ship, Chopper grumbled at them for not taking him with them. "You missed some flowers and bugs," Kanan told him. Not that he didn't trust Chopper, but he reached out with his senses to confirm Chop hadn't left any 'surprises' around the ship before he set Jacen down at the door to his cabin. Hera trusted her droid implicitly. Kanan still remembered the times from his early days aboard the ship when Chopper had tried to evict him mid-hyperspace.

"You play," he told Jacen. "I'll get lunch ready."

He was halfway to the galley when he felt something peculiar in the Force. He spun and hurried back to the crew quarters, reaching out with his senses. "Jace? You okay?"

There was a giggle, which reassured him. Half a second later and overlapping the first came a second giggle. Where Kanan had set down one toddler with a strong Force presence, he very distinctly now felt two. Worse, he couldn't tell which was his son.

"Jacen, come here," he said, walking closer, not sure about this newcomer.

"Okay," said the first, and the other said it at the same time. There were more giggles, and both toddlers came to him. "Want up!"

Kanan knelt down. Hesitantly, he placed his hand out, feeling the tuft of Jacen's odd hair, not the same texture as a human's but something unique to his own genetic makeup. Kanan reached for the other child, and sure enough, he had the same hair. They both smelled strongly of the soap Kanan had used for this morning's scrub.

"Chopper," Kanan said, keeping a cheery, neutral voice so as not to alarm the children, "come here."

Chopper muttered about how now he was expected to come along. Kanan heard him roll to the end of the corridor. Then he whistled something in Binary that made both kids laugh.

"Language! Do not teach him that!" He sighed. "Buddy, tell me you see this."

Chopper said he observed two small humanoid males, both of whom looked exactly like Darth Stinkpants.

"Stinkpants!" said one, and the other giggled.

Kanan reached for his comlink. "Hera, you need to come back to the ship."

She boarded the ship a few minutes later in a less than pleasant mood. "I was in the middle of..." She stopped dead, then touched her comlink. "Syndulla here. Something's come up. Assume I'm tied up for the rest of the day." Her voice remained steady as she spoke to the 'link, but as soon as she cut the line, she drew in a ragged breath.

Both Jacens said, "Hi, Mama!"

"I was on a lot of medication when he was born, but I know for a fact we didn't have twins. What happened?"

"You've got me. Does the second one look any different to you?"

She stepped closer, and both little forms wrapped themselves around her legs. The worry rolled off her, but so did the rest of her emotions. She knelt down. "Hi, sweetheart." She breathed audibly. "Even the clothes are the same. You don't sense anything different?"

"No. I can feel two presences there, and they're both him."

"When did it happen?"

"Just now. We went for a walk, came back, I felt something move in the Force, and now he's twins."

"He's not twins. Something happened to him. Poor little guy," she said, and he felt both kids move against her for a cuddle. Kanan couldn't read her mind, but he knew her well enough to understand she was thinking things through. "Did any Jedi ever get cloned during the war?"

"Nobody that I knew of. We could ask Rex if he knows of any instant cloning mechanisms. Wouldn't that be something? All the Rebellion's recruitment issues would be solved."

"Now you're pro-clone army? Are you sure Jacen is the one who was affected by whatever this is?"

He spread his hands. "For all I know, I fell while we were on our walk and cracked my skull, and this is some hallucination I'm having while Jace is off chasing bugs."

"What kind of bugs?" She started examining the children. "This one has an insect bite. The other one doesn't." She asked Kanan, "Could that be related?"

"Cloning bugs?"

"I'm trying to come up with something." She moved. "I just pinned my rank badge on the Jacen with the bugbite. He's ours." She took Kanan's hand and pressed it to the new badge on Jacen's shirt.

Chopper took this opportunity to roll closer and express his extreme dissatisfaction with the situation, beeping unhappily at Hera. One kid was enough trouble making messes around the ship. They weren't supposed to make him keep track of two at the same time.

"It's fine, Chop," Hera said. "I'm sure it's temporary."

"I'm not," Kanan said. "We don't know what happened. We have no idea how to put it right. We might be looking at life with two little boys instead of one. That's not the worst fate I can think of."

Unfortunately, as he said the words, he felt one of the boys reach out with his powers, using the Force to pick up Chopper as the other Jacen laughed. "Put him down," Hera said. "No levitating crew members. It's the rule."

Jacen let go, dropping Chopper to the deck. The droid beeped angrily, and the two kids squealed. Then they ran in opposite directions. Kanan went for one, and felt Hera's badge pinned to his shirt as he lifted Jacen into his arm. Hera brought the second one back, holding his hand tightly.

The second one said, "Want lunch, Mama." Then he sneezed. Kanan felt something weird again.

"What just happened?" he asked, although his senses already told him.

In a tight voice, Hera said, "Now he's triplets."

All three kids were hungry. Hera asked Chopper to get some food together for them while she and Kanan herded the children into Jacen's cabin. "Play with your toys," she said, and closed the door.

"I'm not so sure about leaving him alone with the other two," Kanan said.

"Do you sense anything malicious about them?"

He shook his head. "No, it's just weird." He gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure they'll be fine for a few minutes. Are you going to be okay?" He reached for her hand.

"I wish I could say I was more surprised. You know I think this is going to turn out to be some kind of ridiculous Jedi nonsense, right?"

"For all I know, you're right." He let out a small laugh. "I've been thinking about having more kids someday, though personally, I was hoping we'd try the fun way."

"What are we going to do?" The tight line in her voice had returned. Kanan pulled her into a hug.

"I can handle taking care of three of them until we figure out what happened. We know which Jacen is the real one. We'll sort out where the other two came from, and if we can't put things right, then we've got three great little kids. We'll farm them out to the older two for babysitting the second I can get a signal through to Lothal and Krownest." He felt another strange movement in the Force.

The door to Jacen's cabin opened. Hera sighed. "Now there's five."

When lunch was finished, there were seven toddlers running underfoot. The ship was getting crowded and loud. The noise only escalated when one of the Jacens picked up his favorite snuggle toy, and the other six immediately wanted it. Kanan nudged them apart with a gentle Force push, and he took the toy.

"Your doll is going up for now. You can have it back later." This caused all of them to burst into tears at once.

"I'm getting Rex!" Hera said, shouting to be heard over the toddlers.

"Warn him!" Kanan shouted back, and put the doll on a high shelf. A moment later, he felt it brush past him as one of the boys used the Force to grab it back. Kanan rubbed his face. Then he sat down on the deck, and he waved them all over. Two crawled into his lap. The others pushed and climbed to get into the cuddle. He reached out with his hand for the one who stood back holding the doll, and felt Hera's badge. "Come here, kiddo." Jacen, the real Jacen, reluctantly came closer and let the other boys put a hand on his dolly.

One of them sneezed. Kanan felt the familiar pulse announcing the arrival of another little boy. He sighed.

"Let's have story time." He thought back to his favorite stories as a child. Master Windu preferred telling the young Padawans tales with lessons and morals attached. Master Yoda told stories where the Padawans had to sort out their own lessons. Master Plo told stories about truth and adventure, and young Caleb had loved those best of all. "Once in the long ago, there lived a powerful young girl named Vima."

By the time Hera arrived back, Rex in tow, the boys had settled down. Kanan had forgotten most of the Sunrider saga, but Jacen never minded when he started inventing things that weren't in the original story. He wrapped up the tale quickly with, "And so they lived until the end of their days. The end. Hi, Uncle Rex," he added in what he hoped was a jolly voice. The boys turned to Rex and giggled as surprise shot through him.

"You only had one yesterday."

Hera asked, "Do you have any ideas? You're the clone expert."

He came closer, examining the children. "Make sure they all have their own bunks. Teach them their designations early. I see you've already got the uniforms."

Kanan said, "His clothes copy along with him. Which makes no sense."

Another sneeze. Another Jacen. "Hi, Uncle Rex," he said, and went over to him. "Want up!"

Rex picked up the little boy. "You two have a problem."

Another sneeze, and another. Hera started counting. "The next time they all sneeze, we're going to be over capacity for the ship."

Kanan asked, "You've never seen anything like this before?"

"No," Rex said. He was moving, and Kanan realized he must be bouncing Jacen up and down. "My brothers and I all came out of vats, sorry."

Hera asked, "What about Jedi? Did the Kaminoans ever try cloning one of them?"

"If they did, it didn't work. There was something unique about Jango Fett. That's why we all wear his face. If they could've cloned Jedi, they'd have done it."

One of the Jacens in Kanan's lap gave a hitch, and sneezed another one into being beside himself. Just like the rest, Kanan felt the Force presence inside him. He was seriously revisiting his "hit his head too hard this morning" theory.

"What's making them sneeze?" Hera asked.

Kanan reached for the Jacen he thought was the original. There was Hera's rank badge on his shirt, and there was the giggle he knew so well. He handed Hera the soft toy, then rolled up Jacen's sleeve and ran two fingers over his arm, feeling for the place where he'd been bitten. "Do you think it was the insect that bit him?"

"You tell me," Hera said, kneeling down next to him. The other toddlers reached for her. "All I know is, we now have twelve little boys, and unless Jacen finished up his 'fresher training this morning, we're going to have a serious biohazard issue in about another hour."

"He did not," Kanan said, a new horror dawning before him. Chopper adamantly refused to assist with changing wet or dirty pants when there was only one Jacen to deal with.

Rex quickly put down the child he was holding. "I'll be off. Good luck." He left to the sound of two more sneezes.

"Don't put that in your mouth," Hera said, almost on autopilot. Jacen put everything into his mouth all the time. They'd toddler-proofed the ship, and he still somehow managed to find things they missed. Curiosity splashed through her. "What's this?"

"What did he have?"

"It looks like a blue flower. Did he pick this up while you were out?"

Kanan made a face at the nearest Jacen. "I said no touching, remember?"

"Nope."

Hera dug into the pockets of the original Jacen's clothes. "He's got a handful of flowers in here." She waved one experimentally in the air. Jacen sneezed, and made another one. Then Kanan felt a tickle in his nose. Before he could react, he let out a sneeze of his own. He felt the Force surge.

Hera stumbled back, letting out a swear word that was instantly repeated by a chorus of little voices.

"Okay," she said in a voice clearly fighting for calm. "What one of you is the real Kanan?"

"I am," he said, and so did the other one. His voice sounded strange coming from someone else, like a holorecording. "At least now we know how we're going to deal with the diaper situation."

Hera took a long, audible sniff before either Kanan could stop her. She sneezed. He didn't feel a change. The other him asked, "How many of you are there?"

"Just me." She checked the pockets of the other Jacens, then stood up and took the flowers to the waste disposer. "Ridiculous Jedi nonsense. All right, call Ezra, see if he has any ideas. I'll ask to put through a message to the Hoth base. Skywalker's stationed there."

"He doesn't know anything."

"I know. I want to warn him about sniffing any strange flowers." She opened the cockpit door and looked outside. "Those flowers are sprouting everywhere thanks to that rain. We can keep the ship's air scrubbers going, but we can't keep the ship sealed if I leave."

Kanan's nose tingled. He clapped his hands over his face to stop it. The other Kanan sneezed.

"Hi, Dad!" said a handful of Jacens to the newcomer. Two others yawned. "I'm tired."

The newest Kanan scooped up a kid in each arm. "It is getting close to your naptime. We do not have enough bunks for all of you."

Kanan said, "But we can fit two to each bunk we do have, and probably four in ours. What about it, kiddo? Want a nap?"

They managed to herd the small army of toddlers into the cabins. "No touching," one of the other Kanans warned as he put two kids into Sabine's bunk. "You know Sabine doesn't like you playing with her stuff."

"Okay. Night, Dad."

Eventually all the cabin doors were shut. Hera said, "We're going to open those, and there's going to be a small wave of green-haired little boys as far as the eye can see."

"It's going to be fine," Kanan said, placing a hand on her shoulder only to discover one of his own twins was already comforting her. "How awkward is this?"

"Very," Hera said, pulling away from all of them. "We need to solve this problem."

"Yeah," said one of the other Kanans. "We should find a plant that multiplies you."

Kanan said immediately, "For the record, _I_ didn't say that."

"You were all thinking it." She rubbed her head. "I'm sealing the ship and turning the air scrubbers on high. That should eliminate any pollen left floating around. You figure out how to give them all a bath," she said to one of his twins. "You sort out how we're going to feed them," she said to the other duplicate. To Kanan himself she said, "You contact Ezra and find out if he has any ideas."

"Right," he said, and so did the other two. He flinched. Then he shook his head. "Hey, did you feel that?"

"Yeah," said one of them. The Force gave another shimmer.

"How many?" Hera asked.

"I'm not sure," said one of the others. They didn't wait to tell Hera. Something new was happening, and it didn't matter which Jacen it was happening to. He had to make sure his kid was okay. He ran to Zeb and Ezra's old cabin, but one of him was faster and already had the door open.

Where there had been four Jacens, only one slept now. "Check the other rooms," Hera said, and he always did follow her orders, one of him going to each door. Sabine's room still held three little boys, up and playing together. Jacen's cabin was empty. Even as they opened the door to their own room, he felt more shimmers. They were gone.

In Sabine's room, one of Kanan's twins picked up a little boy. "No more playing. It's nap time."

"Okay, Dad." He closed his eyes, and let himself be carried to an empty room, while Hera kissed the two who were left and told them to get some rest.

"Down to four," he said to her as she closed the door.

"Three," said the other Kanan. Zeb's cabin was empty.

"Where's the real one?" Hera asked, the same edge in her voice.

"I put him into his cabin. He's fine. He thinks this has all been some silly game we're playing." Even as he spoke, the Force shimmered two more times.

Nerves still eating at her, Hera went to Jacen's room. One of Kanan's twins left and came back with the snuggle toy, which he took in and put into Jacen's hand. Jacen pulled it against himself, and took a long, deep yawn, and fell asleep as his parents stood there. After a few minutes, he started to let out tiny snores.

"I said he was fine," said the other Kanan, and he closed the door.

Hera let out a breath. "Right. That's sorted. You'll go back to normal as soon as you fall asleep tonight. I'm putting in for an emergency transfer to the Hoth base. If I get clearance, we'll leave immediately so I don't have to break containment. Chopper, get the ship ready for travel."

"Wait," Kanan said. "Not the ice planet?"

"You two are allergic to the plant life here. I guarantee they won't grow there."

"We could join Zeb," said one of his twins.

"That's right," said the other. "It'd be great to see him again."

"No."

"Technically, we outvote you right now," said the twin Kanan was beginning to think of as the stupid one, which worried him a little considering they were all him.

"This isn't a democracy," Hera said. "You should shower and change into clean clothes if you have them handy." She went to the cockpit to contact the rest of Command.

"You know," Kanan said to his twins, "I can think of a dozen interesting ways to spend the rest of the day and encourage us to fall asleep, but she's going to say no to all of them."

"Yeah," said another Kanan with a sigh as he shared the thought. "I call first shower."

By the time all three of them were clean, Jacen was awake and playing with his toys. There was only one of him, thank the Force.

"Hi, kiddo."

"Hi. Where they go?"

"Away. It's time for your bath now."

"Okay."

Extra hands made it easier to pass him along for games and stories. He babbled at his dads, unfazed, and he was overjoyed at Hera being home all day long as she made plans over the comms. He was even more delighted when Hera announced she was making dinner for once, and Jacen would be her helper. He'd had a great day, as far as he knew.

Kanan didn't start yawning until midway through the meal. He couldn't read her face, but he felt her soft spike of guilt. "You didn't."

"It's a very mild sedative," Hera said apologetically.

Another Kanan said, "I thought we agreed we wouldn't drug each other again. Not after that last time."

The third one was already nodding off, resting his head on the table as Jacen laughed at his dad being so silly.

He felt the Force shimmer, and Jacen said, "Where he go?"

"Away," Hera told him. "Tell your dad night night."

"Night night, Dad. Love you."

Kanan found that his head was very heavy. Maybe he could rest for just a minute.

When he woke, he'd been pulled from the galley into the lounge. Groggy, he sat up. "Hey!" he called out, reaching out with his powers. They were already in hyperspace. Jacen was in his room. Hera was coming towards the lounge. His memories from earlier in the day were disjointed towards the end. He could recall overlapping impressions of the same conversations, and it was giving him a slight headache.

"Hi," she said. "I'm really sorry."

"I don't think you are, but apology accepted. Am I just me?"

"You're just you." She took a seat next to him. "We're on our way to Hoth. We'll arrive in a couple of days."

"I gathered. Today started out so good, too." He rubbed the sleep from his face. "How's Jace?"

"He's gone down for the night. We spent a busy evening together. Apparently his blocks have declared war on his stuffed animals."

"That's in retaliation. You should hear what the stuffed animals did."

She laughed. "You've given him a wonderful imagination. I'm hoping I can spend a little more time home once we're on Hoth. I'd like to get in on some of this playtime. And we did just get rid of all his potential playmates."

"I'm okay with that. Fourteen kids was about ten more than I planned."

Her concern shifted. "You want four kids?"

"We've managed the first three pretty well. After today, I'm more than happy to wait until the war is over to think about adding number four to the mix."

"You and me both." She slid closer to him on the sofa. "Of course, if we're going to think about having another child, that's going to involve planning."

He sighed. "Of course it is." Not that they'd planned Jacen.

"For example, you mentioned something about trying the fun way." Her hand found his shoulder. "That might take a lot of practice to get the process right before we try for real."

"It might," he said, feeling a smile grow. "When were you thinking about practicing?"

"I was considering it earlier today when there were three of you, but that was a little too weird for me."

"That could have been a lot of fun."

She leaned closer, resting against him. "There's only one of you now. Let's practice."

And as it turned out, the long day ended even nicer than it began.

* * *

end


End file.
